Census can be unifying starting point

STOCKTON - Music thumped, hot dogs sizzled and the sun shined down on Stribley Park as families sat on the grass and men played basketball and handball on the blacktop.

Zachary K. Johnson

STOCKTON - Music thumped, hot dogs sizzled and the sun shined down on Stribley Park as families sat on the grass and men played basketball and handball on the blacktop.

A perfect spring Saturday was only one reason bringing people to the south Stockton park. Another was the national census.

The constitutionally mandated count, which occurs every 10 years and determines how many seats each state will have in the U.S. Congress, is used in drawing political boundaries and determines how billions of dollars for roads, schools and other services are spent.

Census workers said each person counted can bring in $1,700 a year and that events, such as the gathering in Stribley Park, helps drum up the numbers of people being counted in communities that need the funding the most.

But it's more than that, said Samuel Nuņez, director of San Joaquin Center for Fatherhood and Families and organizer of Saturday's Healing the Hood Census Block Party.

"The census is just a launching pad," he said. Events, such as the block party, help strengthen the bonds that make a community - an important steps to making sure increased funding is spent well, he said. The census is just part of understanding what a community is and what it needs, he said.

"If we don't know who we are, how can we move forward together," he said.

Very few forms from the U.S. Census Bureau were actually filled out at the event, but that's not the point, said census workers, who were handing out backpacks, water bottles and other census swag while answering questions.

Getting people the information they need is important, and the merchandise keeps the census on people's minds, said Jennifer Osorio, a census partnership assistant. "We're hoping to create a surround sound."

Among the posters on display, one promises that the information being collected in the census will be kept confidential. By working with community groups at joint events such as this, trusted community leaders help persuade more people to fill out the forms, Osorio said.

And low response rates in the 2000 census show which areas of Stockton are hard to count.

Stockton and San Joaquin County contain large numbers of immigrants, minorities and the poor - groups proven difficult to count in the past, she said.

Workers already have begun to knock on doors in hard-to-count areas in south Stockton.

Rose Montgomery said she was at work the first time a census worker dropped by her home. But she was eventually able to connect with someone and fill out her form.

She filled out the form for herself and her four children, she said. It was pretty easy, she said.